Debt Dumpers - 2019

[potterfanatic]

I am looking for some advice/stories about selling your house. I am about 90% sure I want to sell the house I own in Florida and rent out. (We are renting in New England, and have decided we don't want to move back to Florida.) I guess I'm trying to get some info on how much it cost to get your house ready to sell. I know we're going to need to replace the flooring after having renters, but it was built in 2010 so I'm hoping there won't be a whole lot of additional expensive repairs. I would love to be able to sell and walk away with some money to put toward our debt. With the neighborhood sales from the past year, it looks like we could be could be selling with anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 over what we owe on it (not counting the costs involved in selling).

 

[OhMari]

I am looking for some advice/stories about selling your house. I am about 90% sure I want to sell the house I own in Florida and rent out. (We are renting in New England, and have decided we don't want to move back to Florida.) I guess I'm trying to get some info on how much it cost to get your house ready to sell. I know we're going to need to replace the flooring after having renters, but it was built in 2010 so I'm hoping there won't be a whole lot of additional expensive repairs. I would love to be able to sell and walk away with some money to put toward our debt. With the neighborhood sales from the past year, it looks like we could be could be selling with anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 over what we owe on it (not counting the costs involved in selling).

Where is the house, do you have good renters?

 

[barkley]

I am looking for some advice/stories about selling your house. I am about 90% sure I want to sell the house I own in Florida and rent out. (We are renting in New England, and have decided we don't want to move back to Florida.) I guess I'm trying to get some info on how much it cost to get your house ready to sell. I know we're going to need to replace the flooring after having renters, but it was built in 2010 so I'm hoping there won't be a whole lot of additional expensive repairs. I would love to be able to sell and walk away with some money to put toward our debt. With the neighborhood sales from the past year, it looks like we could be could be selling with anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 over what we owe on it (not counting the costs involved in selling).

research GOOD realtors in the area; established with a good knowledge base of the market in the area you own in. find out what is a must for a sale where you own vs. a waste of money. when we last sold we assumed we needed to do several things when in reality the market for that area was such that some lower cost repairs were a MUST to be done before listing while some higher end would have never factored into the pricing. there are some things (like flooring) where, depending on the market, it's better for a seller to offer a credit so a potential buyer can opt for the flooring of their choice.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I am looking for some advice/stories about selling your house. I am about 90% sure I want to sell the house I own in Florida and rent out. (We are renting in New England, and have decided we don't want to move back to Florida.) I guess I'm trying to get some info on how much it cost to get your house ready to sell. I know we're going to need to replace the flooring after having renters, but it was built in 2010 so I'm hoping there won't be a whole lot of additional expensive repairs. I would love to be able to sell and walk away with some money to put toward our debt. With the neighborhood sales from the past year, it looks like we could be could be selling with anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 over what we owe on it (not counting the costs involved in selling).

I would ask a realtor to get the best answer. All of us would be just guessing. Back in the early 90s, dh used to renovate homes that were damaged after people left their homes due to foreclosure. Obviously when people are removed, they don't take it lightly. Usually there is a lot of intentional damage on their way out. Banks that would then own the home but want to sell it without having to put a large investment into getting it sold, but still try to recover their losses as much as possible. So for a while when dh was laid off from his regular job, he got connected through realtor friend.

Without paying a ton of money for kitchen and bath renovation, he would say it's amazing what a thorough cleaning, fresh paint and new carpeting/flooring does for a place. If the exterior can be painted or power washed, that helps too. Dh calls it "lipstick & rouge".

 

[potterfanatic]

Thank you for your answers.

Where is the house, do you have good renters?

It’s in a little town just south of Tallahassee. Our renters are ok. They always pay late but have never missed a month. The rent covers exactly the cost of the mortgage.

I think our next step will be researching relators. We have a property manager but I would not want to use her as our agent.

 

[jen7233]

I am looking for some advice/stories about selling your house. I am about 90% sure I want to sell the house I own in Florida and rent out. (We are renting in New England, and have decided we don't want to move back to Florida.) I guess I'm trying to get some info on how much it cost to get your house ready to sell. I know we're going to need to replace the flooring after having renters, but it was built in 2010 so I'm hoping there won't be a whole lot of additional expensive repairs. I would love to be able to sell and walk away with some money to put toward our debt. With the neighborhood sales from the past year, it looks like we could be could be selling with anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 over what we owe on it (not counting the costs involved in selling).

I've sold two personal homes that were our primary residences. As far as cost, house #1 we did pretty much nothing to attract buyers, minus good cleaning I did and steam clean carpets professionally. However, that house was in a very LCOL area, and was only on market for $72k so it attracted buyers of that price range, and we had no problem with offers. House #2 was a new home, we were first occupants, selling was tougher took 9 months. As new home owners, we input things for our comfort while living there that weren't with the new home such as sprinkler system, fencing, additional bathroom cabinetry, professional window blinds, so essentially since home was new there wasn't much on improvements to home that would be needed to sell. What I spent money on trying to sell that home was more on my time, every day had to clean it before leaving for work, or be gone from home on weekends for a showing, and also send dog to doggy daycare in the event I got a call from the realtor for a showing as it was impossible to leave work during the week and drive all the way home. That home was tough to sell, the market ended up different from what the realtor had implied in the beginning, long story, but was not happy with that selling experience.

 

[jen7233]

I think our next step will be researching relators. We have a property manager but I would not want to use her as our agent.

I'd recommend a good screen of realtors. The realtor was my issue with house #2 in selling. We went with her because we knew her as that was the realtor we used to buy the home. Big mistake, some realtors are fine for buying, but for selling get one that has a good SELLING track record. That's what we used with house #1, and she was good, even though LCOL area, still she was known as one of the best for sales and it worked out in our favor. We went with #2 because we knew them, never will make that mistake again, they were more of a buyer's agent than a track record of being a seller's agent. I learned a lot from that house sale, including putting my shoes in the other feet of the buyer, so that when we go to purchase another home in the future, we are coming in low at first and see what the seller is willing to negotiate and will not be desperate falling in love with a particular home. It's all about the transaction for me next time and I'm going to get a deal or not buying it.

 

[Aurora_Australis]

Updating because I have been very slack with posting lately. I'll read a few pages and get distracted by life and by the time I come back there are another 5 pages of posts!

DH finally got a first pay for the year last week. He has been working pretty solidly, two 9 day fortnights at a mix of schools and starts a 2 week block filling in for someone on leave at his most regular school today. (Which is extra good as they finish 30 mins before our daughters do so he gets to do speech and OT and netball runs for a fortnight.)

Has also meant I can get up to date on the little bit of credit card floating I'd had to do, along with starting to fund all of this year's school holiday savings again.

I also averaged out all our bills for 2 monthly payments so we can start to take proper advantage of 3 paycheck months but our first one is not til May. Paid a little extra from our discretionary money onto our last remaining CC as that puts it under $1k and it is so nice to see it under that amount!

At the same time I've paid flights and half our hotel costs for our trip to Japan in September. Still need to buy some internal flights, TDR tickets and a rail pass but that will come out of our tax return in July.

CC -$996 owing, pay off by June (barring Murphy's intervention)
Car loan - $11962, pay off by Aug 2020, 3yrs instead of 5 (roll that snowball into saving to replace mine, which will be 10yrs old by that point)
Mortgage - large still! Refinancing is almost complete though and will have money to pay our deck AND lower repayments when the new loan is funded.

 

[MamaBelleRN]

I am looking for some advice/stories about selling your house. I am about 90% sure I want to sell the house I own in Florida and rent out. (We are renting in New England, and have decided we don't want to move back to Florida.) I guess I'm trying to get some info on how much it cost to get your house ready to sell. I know we're going to need to replace the flooring after having renters, but it was built in 2010 so I'm hoping there won't be a whole lot of additional expensive repairs. I would love to be able to sell and walk away with some money to put toward our debt. With the neighborhood sales from the past year, it looks like we could be could be selling with anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 over what we owe on it (not counting the costs involved in selling).

We JUST sold our rental property in August. A good realtor will definitely help you maximize your profit. One big reason we decided to sell (we had not planned on it but our renters unexpectedly gave notice) is that we are not handy. Most of the things we paid for could easily have been done with some sweat equity. We had just replaced the AC and furnace and carpets at the beginning of 2018, so to get it market ready we addressed all the small odds and ends (replaced door knobs, addressed a plumbing issue and minor electrical issues including replacing most fixtures). This cost us about $1200. We had someone paint and that cost $200 +supplies. Even though the roof was OLD our realtor said wait on it and see what the inspection notes (we did need to replace it). BUT I felt our realtor was wise to have us not outlay the cash unless we needed to. We had multiple offers within 24h so he felt the ball was strongly in our court. They asked us to cover $3k of closing costs and he suggested we counter by covering it but increasing the sale price by $3k so it wouldn’t be a loss on our end. All in all, I felt he did a great job of helping us get as much as we could out of the property. So as the others have said, find a good realtor!

 

[fifthdimensiondweller]

Husband needs an MRI on his knee.... $427 but it was actually more and we got a 10% discount for prepaying so that was good! We have a $500 deductible too so at least between that and the x-ray DH's individual deductible will be done for the year. The x-ray bill looks like it'll come today if informed delivery is right. Question though:

The x-ray was billed before we prepaid the MRI, so the amount will not reflect us being so close to our deductible. Should DH call first and make sure the amount owed won't change since we'll hit our deductible, or should we just pay whatever it is and they'll refund and difference after processing both charges and seeing where we would hit the deductible?

 

[barkley]

The x-ray was billed before we prepaid the MRI, so the amount will not reflect us being so close to our deductible. Should DH call first and make sure the amount owed won't change since we'll hit our deductible, or should we just pay whatever it is and they'll refund and difference after processing both charges and seeing where we would hit the deductible?

i would give them a quick call and ask what their preference is. some places we've dealt with find it easier to wait until it gets straightened out w/insurance so they make a note in your account to reflect that you aren't ignoring the bill but waiting for the final balance due. the thing i wonder about though-since the xray occured first-won't your insurance company still use that to apply to deductibles and then AFTER the mri occurs it will be up to you/provider to arrange for any refund from the mri payment (that's how mine works-it goes by when the procedure occurred, not by who got their billing in first so i've had a couple of times where an earlier in the year procedure happened but didn't get timely billed so i ended up with all kinds of new paperwork from insurance showing adjustments to previously processed claims and then i had to contact providers for refunds).

 

[fifthdimensiondweller]

not by who got their billing in first so i've had a couple of times where an earlier in the year procedure happened but didn't get timely billed so i ended up with all kinds of new paperwork from insurance showing adjustments to previously processed claims and then i had to contact providers for refunds).

So the thing with this is that we have Kaiser Permanente- so our insurance company and medical providers are all the same, so billing is all done in house and done pretty quickly. I'm new to Kaiser (although DH has had it for several years) so I'm not sure how this works with everything being done in house. I'll probably just call to be safe but that's a good point that it might be based on when the procedure occurred and not when billing/ payment occurred. Thanks for responding so quickly!

 

[pblack]

@grumpy28 I just noticed that my order for the waffle maker says it will be shipped from a trusted disney partner and to allow 2-3 weeks for delivery. It didn't say that in my confirmation e-mail, but when I go look at my order on shopdisney it gives me that tidbit of info. Thought i'd tell you since I imagine yours is probably the same way and didn't know if you noticed it or not.

 

[grumpy28]

@grumpy28 I just noticed that my order for the waffle maker says it will be shipped from a trusted disney partner and to allow 2-3 weeks for delivery. It didn't say that in my confirmation e-mail, but when I go look at my order on shopdisney it gives me that tidbit of info. Thought i'd tell you since I imagine yours is probably the same way and didn't know if you noticed it or not.

Thanks for the heads up! I just checked and mine says that too. That seems kind of weird to me. Never had anything from shopdisney say that before.

 

[dina444444]

Thanks for the heads up! I just checked and mine says that too. That seems kind of weird to me. Never had anything from shopdisney say that before.

Looks like Disney has made some of their vendors hop on to the drop ship train.

 

[grumpy28]

Looks like Disney has made some of their vendors hopp on to the drop ship train.

Totally had to google that. But yes, seems to be the case.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

My parents came this weekend to pick up our bird to watch him during our Disney trip. They were also interested in seeing the progress on the basement and to visit with DD. We gave them the tour and they were really impressed with the basement and how it looks. They think the builders are doing a really great job. Things are coming along nicely and it is exciting to know that we are getting closer and closer to being finished.

Well, we went out to lunch yesterday and while we sitting there, my dad offered to pay for the wet bar so that we would be completely finished with the basement. That includes cabinets, counter top, appliances, hardware, back splash plus install for everything. He is giving us a certain amount and said that if we have money left over, we could put it towards furniture for the theatre room. I am pretty shocked but also excited. We thought that it would be several years before we would have paid down the HELOC enough to be able to complete the wet bar. It will be so nice to have this finished. We will also be putting the same marble back splash in the kitchen and probably doing the same color tile (but maybe larger size or different pattern) on the fireplace as well, as I have always hated what was on there when we bought the house. Such a wonderful gift.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Y'all, I'm crying happy tears today.
Last week I got a letter from our repo lawyers saying they could settle the account for $4000. I said there was no way I could do that much and countered for $1500. This morning they called and said they ACCEPTED my offer! I'll have that paid off by the March 5th and then we're DONE with it! Settling means it's paid off over 8 months early and saves us so much ($700 a month!). Because of this, I'm able to pay off so many other things and put money towards the wedding faster. I cried on the phone to the lady.

Just gotta wait for my taxes to post. They've been approved, now I just have to wait for the deposit tonight or tomorrow night!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Y'all, I'm crying happy tears today.
Last week I got a letter from our repo lawyers saying they could settle the account for $4000. I said there was no way I could do that much and countered for $1500. This morning they called and said they ACCEPTED my offer! I'll have that paid off by the March 5th and then we're DONE with it! Settling means it's paid off over 8 months early and saves us so much ($700 a month!). Because of this, I'm able to pay off so many other things and put money towards the wedding faster. I cried on the phone to the lady.

Just gotta wait for my taxes to post. They've been approved, now I just have to wait for the deposit tonight or tomorrow night!

That is so great! I remember when you were first dealing with this situation and how terrible it was to have to continue paying on a car you didn't even have anymore. So many happy thoughts to you!

 

[Dentam]

Last week I got a letter from our repo lawyers saying they could settle the account for $4000. I said there was no way I could do that much and countered for $1500. This morning they called and said they ACCEPTED my offer! I'll have that paid off by the March 5th and then we're DONE with it! Settling means it's paid off over 8 months early and saves us so much ($700 a month!). Because of this, I'm able to pay off so many other things and put money towards the wedding faster. I cried on the phone to the lady.

That's wonderful news!! Congratulations!!